NEIGHBORLEE VISITORS GUIDE: Book for August, SHRUNK: THE EXILE OF MAURICE

 

Welcome to the Visitors Guide to Neighborlee, Ohio.

 The most important thing you need to understand: Neighborlee is magic. Some people say the town is alive. It exists to protect the weird and wonderful (and sometimes a little bit scary) from the cold, practical, material world.

More important, Neighborlee protects the outside world from the weird and wonderful that come to visit … and sometimes come to stay.

Come in and explore. Meet the people who guard Neighborlee. Share their adventures of magic and wonder, danger and sacrifice. You never know who or what you’ll run into as you walk the streets and listen to the stories of their lives.

 Each month of 2025, we're focusing on 1 book in the Neighborlee series. You'll hear the first chapter of the featured book here. Please visit Ye Olde Dragon Books to find out more, read excerpts, and even play games to earn points toward free books.

 Ready to get a taste of this month's featured book? Here we go!

 

AUGUST's BOOK:

SHRUNK: THE EXILE OF MAURICE

Maurice used his Fae magic to help the downtrodden and abused. But when he went too far, the Powers-That-Be decided he needed to learn humility, self-restraint, and mercy. They took away most of his magic, shrunk him down to five inches, and slapped wings on his back that no self-respecting Fae would be caught dead in. Then they exiled him to the Human realms, to work out his sentence helping Humans. 

His destination: Divine's Emporium, a curiosity shop touched with magic, on the edge of the odd town of Neighborlee, Ohio. 

His parole officer: Angela, the proprietress of Divine's Emporium, touched with magic and a shadowy past of her own. 

His sentence: Help the Humans who come into Divine's to find answers, freedom, their own magic, and true love. Not necessarily in that order. 

His problem: How does a five-inch-tall Fae, invisible to most Humans, win the heart of the ugly duckling who has caught his interest, his sympathy, and then his heart -- when she can't see or hear him?

Check back for excerpts all month, and a quiz to earn points toward free books!

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

"Just give the word," Harrison continued. "I'll flip the switch and let your Romeo know you're there, and send you on over his vital stats. Hey, I'm a firm believer in women having the right to make the first move." His greasy chuckle brought up a handful of college memories I would rather had stayed lost in forgetfulness.

To be fair, Harrison wasn't really a greasy character. He wasn't really that unethical or manipulative, either. He was just kind of thoughtless, and when he got his sights focused on a prize, it was hard to stop him from going for it. He tripped over a lot of people and got his toes stomped on. I really had to feel sorry for the guy, because he meant well. He just couldn't figure out things like proper procedures and privacy and personal space.

"Pretend you never got the message," Conrad said, when I reached up to my phone and ended the playback.

After Harrison gave me his phone and email, and then a condensed version of his spiel, then the phone and email again. Like I could forget, with shivers of horror trickling down my back and ruining the really good lunch I had just eaten?

"What, blame the equipment?" I turned my chair around to face him. Conrad was slouched into one of the chairs the trio had used on Monday to report on Athena's faked attack.

"It's convenient. Which is why I keep saying no to the new owner, who wants to upgrade all our equipment." He shrugged and gave me a  thin sort of smile. "If you call the guy back, even if it's to say no, you will never hear the last of him. He screwed up big-time, using your information, and he's scrambling to keep from getting in trouble. No," he hurried to say, when I reached for the button to open up the voicemail controls. "You want that message to use against him if things get out of hand." 

"Like what?" I shook my head and waved my hand to stop him when he opened his mouth to respond. "Don't even say it. Saying it aloud makes it possible. I can think of a dozen awful things that could happen. I'll transfer the message to my email and send it home, then delete it from here."

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 I still couldn't remember Harrison or his project.

"You were part of my testing group."

I was in a lot of testing groups. If we weren't theorizing and setting up experiments, then we earned our credits by being tested, usually by filling out reams of questionnaires or watching videos with electrodes attached to our heads.

"I think you'll be very interested to know that I parlayed my relationship analysis program --"

Oh, dang. Him. Mr. Computers-will-do-all-the-dirty-work-and-let-you-get-to-know-someone-twice-as-quickly-with-half-the-fuss.

" -- into a matchmaking program. I've been in business a couple years now, and doing very well, if I do say so myself." He gave the name of his company. Even though I had heard of it, serving the higher economic bracket of the East Side, I hadn't heard much of anything about the company, good or bad.

"Anyway," he continued after a short pause. Like maybe he expected me to pick up, all excited about his programming genius and financial success? Was this guy expecting me to be all gaga for him? (Maybe gag-gag.) "Just for grins and giggles --"

Yeah, I remembered him now. What a stupid line!

" --I still had your profile from that class project. Heck, I have everybody's profile. I put them all into the program, just to see what or who would pop out. Hey, Lanie, I found your perfect match. Now, as a favor to an old college pal, normally I'd charge two big ones for the basic level service."

I certainly hoped that when he said "big ones" he meant hundred, and not thousand. Because if he did, and if he expected to get paid for something I didn't ask for, I was going to break every vow of ethics controlling the superheroes in all those comic books I read growing up. I would sabotage all those computers he loved so much. And that was just for starters.

"But for you, it's free."

"Better believe it's free, considering he put your private information into his system without your permission," Conrad growled, from about five feet behind me. 

Yes, I jumped about four inches straight up out of my chair. The guy had snuck up on me. Just how often did that happen? I usually could tell when someone was watching me, trying to eavesdrop on me, or just plain sneak up on me.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

My past came back to haunt me, with a vengeance. The voicemail was from a classmate I barely remembered, from a class I wished I could forget, first semester of my senior year of college.

"Hey, Lynny, it's Harrison Kamel from the 'commercial psych practices' class at WBC. Long time no hear, huh?"

I couldn't remember the name right off, but the class, I did remember. Utter misery. I was glad I hadn't been there to take the call. I wanted to delete the message right there, but I had been working at the Tattler long enough to have a sense for phone messages that I needed to hear through to the end. The end always contained the dangerous portion. So I kept listening. Hopefully, the worst of the call would be to find out he was on his way in to visit me. Hopefully, I had time to go out another door.

"Commercial psych practices" was exactly what it sounded like. I took it only to fulfill requirements for my teaching certificate. I got twice the credits for half the time spent in the classroom because it was an experimental class. Seriously, I should have taken warning from the "experiment" those poor professors had tried to carry off on the entire freshman class, my first year of college. Despite that, I took the class to get those credits and have more time for guardian duties.  And yeah, there was this guy I started dating. That didn't end well, either. The class basically studied how to use psychology for commercial practices, such as advertising.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 Thursday after we got Athena safely out of town, I went out at lunchtime. Deliberately. I was in a snarky mood and wanted to be accosted by Freddie Grandstone, who was starting to look a little frantic as he wandered the streets of Neighborlee, looking for "his" sweet Athena. Seriously? The guy obviously never met Athena Longfellow. Yes, she was always a good girl. Smart. Funny. Loyal. Determined. Sassy. Innocent in many things. "Sweet"? Nope. Not the way Grandstones applied it. For them, sweet equaled stupid, gullible and malleable. Not my Athena!

My mission was frustrating him. I so much wanted to stare him down and tell him, in complete honesty, that I didn't know where Athena was. Because I didn't. She wasn't due at Bethany's shooting location for another five or six hours.

No Freddie appeared. Maybe the dweeb knew I was looking for him? Grandstones had to have some kind of defensive radar, to have lasted so long, despite all their failures. Maybe that showed how desperate the Rivals were that they hadn't wiped out the Grandstone clan as an unreliable weapon. 

However, that was the day I ran into Jane Wilson, finalizing her paperwork to take over the Spindelmutter building and set up her spa, and fulfill the visions I had had long before Christmas. After our conversation, I remembered her and made my guess about her being the person I saw in my dream/vision, when I watched someone rescue Hayward, Steve and Toby.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

While we were on the subject of the Fae, Angela assured me that Bethany had always had a few Fae "observers" since she left Neighborlee to pursue her rising star. They were keeping watch on her. Angela had requested extra vigilance for Athena's sake, since any threat that found Athena would latch onto Bethany. After all, if our enemies figured out enough to identify guardians, past and present, they might have the sensitivity to detect her mixed blood heritage.

After things calmed down more, Angela determined the real draw for bringing Fae into town was Eden. Our community center sat over a huge clump of the collected magic that defended our town. Like, duh? We all knew that already. We figured that was the reason Big Ugly or the Oil Slick, if they weren't the same, had manifested at New Year's, caused time slips, and drained people.

The Fae were in town to conduct scientific studies of the shift in power flow and usage and analyze what had gone wrong over the years, to allow the enemy to siphon it away. If Big Ugly or some other enemy had been able to use the energy for their own nefarious ends, or if they had been draining it to make sure the guardians couldn't use it, no one was sure yet. It might take years of study. Then Angela gave me the disquieting news that the Fae experienced time differently than Humans did. Fae time wasn't along the lines of how God experienced time, while living outside of time, being a non-linear person. The Fae could spend years sequestered in their enclaves, living separated from Earth's time stream, and step through a portal to Earth and find out that only a few months had passed. Or they could go home for a weekend and return to Earth to find a century had passed. Sometimes Fae who had chosen to settle among Humans, or just to "vacation" among us for a few years, would get into serious trouble, send up a metaphorical signal flare for help, and none would come for weeks, months, or years. Then when help showed up, they would discover that the people back home had just gotten the SOS and had come as quickly as they could. There was that lovely time differential. So when the Fae said it could take years to decipher what had happened, what had gone wrong, how to prevent it happening in the future, Angela had no idea if it was years in Earth time, years in Fae enclave time, or any reliable translation between the two. 

At least I knew why those people were skulking around town, and I decided to take it as a good sign when their numbers decreased to the point I wasn't seeing clouds of attendant winkies everywhere I turned.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 Thanks to less power being sucked away and more power building up in Neighborlee for our defensive purposes, I was getting leg tremors and prickling at the most inconvenient times. Winkies swarmed me at the most inconvenient times. It was one thing to be the only one in the room who could see them. It sometimes got pretty dang difficult to sit in a meeting at work and not swat at or laugh at the sparkling bits of light creating images in the air around my co-workers' faces.

Along with the winkies, Fae came to visit. Not Will and Phil, who I had gotten used to during their infrequent visits when I was younger. These were people who sort of ghosted their way through town. Gliding through the crowds of shoppers and people taking advantage of unseasonably nice weather to get outside and socialize or just get their steps in for the day. I recognized them by the trails of winkies. If that didn't confirm their identity for me, their pointy ears did.

Funny thing. Most of the Fae, I saw at Miller's Diner. They didn't seem to be making any effort to connect with Ben Miller. Who, I might add, displayed definite points in his ears. I hadn't seen those points until our New Year's battle with Big Ugly solved the whole power-siphon problem. (And created some new ones. The fluctuations as energy levels struggled for a new normal made my legs twitchy. A few times, I needed to get out of my wheelchair and walk, to get rid of the feeling, before I started screaming. However, I couldn't really explain to people the whole power field problem and how I might finish healing after all these years, now could I?)

I ate a lot of meals at Miller's, and encouraged co-workers to have our lunch breaks at the diner, just so I could keep watch on the pointy-eared visitors. It wasn't exactly a Star Trek convention, or LOTR fandom gone amok. Ben Miller didn't seem to notice anything unusual about his new customers. Maybe the Fae came in and clouded the minds of the wait staff while they helped themselves to food. I caught a lot of them checking out the rogue's gallery, as Stephanie had called the photo display of Miller family history down the back hallway. 

Some of those photos went missing after the influx of Fae calmed down. Angela theorized the spell that made it possible for descendants of Fae to be seen in public without their ear points being noticed might have been failing in those photos. She referred to it as the "don't see me" spell, and … honestly, that couldn't be right, could it? I mean, no, I didn't expect fancy foreign words along the lines of Tolkein's Elvin languages, but still, something a little more dignified? We were dealing with magic here, right?

Quiz Time! Earn points toward free books!

 Here's the quiz for this month's featured novel in the Visitors Guide to Neighborlee.

Go to the Ye Olde Dragon's Library storytelling podcast, either in your favorite podcast app, or at YeOldeDragonBooks.com, and listen to Chapter 1 of BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF.

Then answer these questions, send your answers to 2OldeDragons@gmail.com, and earn points toward free Neighborlee books. That easy!

But remember to do it during this month, because there's a new quiz and new featured book next month!

1. Where did Lanie run into Jane, and what was she doing there?
2. Why was Sheridan Communications having problems due to the Grandstone family?
3. What was the first big clue to fluctuations in Neighborlee's defensive power field?
4. What were the two breeds of "magical critters" who didn't really like each other?
5. What was a result of the fluctuating power field that made Athena angry?
6. Who do they send Athena to visit, to protect both of them?
7. Who was the Grandstone who was semi-invisible because he had stayed out of trouble?
8. Who did he pretend to rescue, to get close to her?
9. What did his minions try to steal?
10. What did Doni want to do to thwart her Halliday relatives' newest attempt to gain custody of her?

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

To cap everything off, Hayward gave Athena her very first fake I.D., complete with dogears and fading so her driver's license and credit cards and insurance card all looked like they had been well used and were ready to be replaced.

Yes, someone could accuse him of trying to make up for all the years he couldn't be active in his daughter's life. Someone else could ask why he bothered, since he had only been a sperm donor, and he had nothing to feel guilty about. But that was the kind of honorable guy Col. Franklin Hayward was. I think he enjoyed being a dad at long last.

Bethany was preparing to help Athena change her look, thanks to her friends in the makeup team for the movie she was making. Not just hair and eyes, but skin tone and build and the way she walked and talked. The rest of us would settle back and watch how intensely the Grandstones scrambled to try to track down Athena. Maybe we would discover the strings being pulled, to follow them back to the evil spider puppet masters. Hopefully clipping those strings would cripple our enemies even more. 

At least, that was the plan. Things got weird and distracted me, so I wasn't really involved in all the cyber-spy work, which Hayward and his allies and Athena handled quite well. I got to enjoy the slide show later, when Bethany came home for a visit and treated us to all the pictures and videos of her and Athena's semi-under-cover adventures.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 By Wednesday morning, we had Athena's tickets. Multiple trips, leaving the country, heading for Canada and Mexico, and several cruise lines. London sounded the alarm as soon as Athena got onto an airline site to book her plane tickets to fly out to join up with Bethany. Someone was watching for her next move. What was interesting was that they hadn't tracked down her particular presence online, but had all sorts of trigger codes downloaded into the airline's website. A quick check by Sherwood revealed that every major airline that serviced the northern half of Ohio was being watched. Athena couldn't even drive to Akron-Canton Airport or Toledo to catch her flight and avoid the notice of the nasties and her erstwhile sweetheart.

Poor Freddie. Every call he tried to place to Athena was cut off before the phone started to ring. It didn't matter if it was her dormitory phone, her cell phone, the Longfellow house landline. Gotta love having really alert, wicked-sense-of-humor AI's as allies.

Athena left town by car, with Hayward. He drove her to JFK, where she caught the first of an even dozen flights, hopscotching around the country. Meanwhile, London and Sherwood were having fun playing with the video cameras and surveillance systems in every hub airport in the country, convincing the watchers that Athena was about to board airplanes going in contradictory directions. If we had wanted to implement a major attack on the Rivals, that would have been the day, because they were distracted, trying to find out which Athena was the real one, so they could track her.

Next book in the VISITORS GUIDE TO NEIGHBORLEE

 

July's featured book in the Visitor's Guide to Neighborlee is BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF. Check back here later in the month for the quiz, to earn points toward a free Neighborlee book.

You can listen to the audio of chapter 1 on Ye Olde Dragon's Library storytelling podcast now -- to help you prepare for the quiz!

What's it about?

Engagements have become a contagious disease in Neighborlee!

In between helping friends plan their weddings, Lanie deals with a dog (that is much more than a dog) that has moved in with her.

Then there's an unwanted match from a dating service that might be planted by enemies of the guardians.

While the guardians slowly make contact with possible allies, they sift through warehouses full of information about their enemies, the Rivals, and discover a new problem: Daniel, Lanie's new boss, might be an enemy spy …